No Electrolysis for Mass. Transgender Prisoner

BOSTON - A federal judge in Massachusetts on Tuesday rejected a request for additional hair-removal treatments for a transgender inmate who won a court order for taxpayer-funded sex-change surgery.

Judge Mark Wolf also ruled that the gender-reassignment surgery he ordered for Michelle Kosilek in September will be on hold while the Department of Correction appeals his ruling.

Kosilek, convicted in the 1990 murder of wife Cheryl Kosilek, was born male but has received hormone treatments and now lives as a woman in an all-male prison.

Wolf said that additional electrolysis for Michelle Kosilek would have to be part of a new case.

The state Department of Correction has said it discontinued electrolysis treatments in 2008 after finding Kosilek had already received significant hair removal and her remaining hair could be removed by shaving or hair removal cream.

Wolf told DOC lawyers that they should work on making arrangements for the surgery, including finding a location and a doctor to perform it, while their appeal is pending.

Wolf ruled in September that sex-reassignment surgery is the only adequate remedy for Kosilek’s gender-identity disorder, a condition that has prompted Kosilek to twice attempt suicide. Wolf found that the DOC had shown "deliberate indifference" to Kosilek’s "serious medical need."

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